Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 4.djvu/795

 APPENDIX J 773 Et si predictus Thomas filius Johaiinis obieric ^c. tunc predicta omnia <Jc. nobis prefato Mauricio filio Thome Comiti et rectis heredibus nostris intcgre revertunt. Clause of warranty. In cujus rei testimonium huic carte sigilla nostra [sic] apponi fecimus Hiis testibus presentibus David de Rupe Gregorio le Walsshe Thoma de Cappella Philippo Staunton Laurencio Apilgard Roberto Scurlogye et multis aliis Datum apud Cnokmurny xvj die Januarii anno regni Regis Edwardi tercii post conquestum regni sui Anglie decimo sexto regni vero sui Francie quinto [sic, should he tercio]. This document professes, therefore, that in Jan. 1342/3 the Earl of Desmond granted [apparently all] his lands to Gerald his son, with succes- sive remainders to Nicholas, John, and Morice, his other sons, all in tail male.(*) As to the sons of the Earl, they were, without any doubt, as follows: I i I. Morice; 2nd Earl: 2. Nicholas, 3. Gerald, h. 1336; d. 1358. an idiot. 3rd Earl. To whom may probably be added John, 4th son. Further, we know that Morice succeeded his father in most of the estates, and certainly in some, e.g., Askeaton, specifically mentioned in the foregoing deed. We must therefore suppose the existence of another Gerald, another Nicholas, and another John, sons of the said Earl, all senior to the same Morice, and all predeceasing their father, s.p.m.: and, moreover, that all the Earl's sons who were younger than Morice were postponed to Thomas fitz John the nephew. Or we must suppose that the Earl really made over his estates in 1342/3 to his 3rd son, then a child of 4 years of age or less, rem. to his 2nd son, an idiot, rem. to his 4th son, rem. to his ist son, the heir to his Earldom: also that this document had no effect whatever in determin- ing the actual succession to the property. It would be difficult to say which of these remarkable suppositions is the more unlikely to be true. The present writer does not propose to adopt either, and merely suggests that in 1557 'a settlement in tail male, by an ancestor, of the Desmond estates would be not without value to the then Earl, and that if the succession of the first few Earls of Desmond had been as well known in the 1 6th century as it is at the present day, the text of the charter of " 16 Edward in England and 5 in France" would probably have been different from that given above. {*) Lynch's comment is brief and unsatisfactory: "Some years previous to his death he [the 1st Earl] executed a settlement in tail male of all his estates in the counties of Kerry, Limerick, Cork, Tipperary, and Waterford . . . By this settlement we find that he had four sons, Maurice, Nicholas, Gerald, and John . . . The eldest son, Maurice fitz Maurice, succeeded to the titles and estates, though Gerald, under the above entail, was made first in remainder." END OF VOLUME FOUR